Fredkent@pps.org
Fred Kent is a leading authority on revitalizing city spaces and one of the foremost thinkers in livability, smart growth and the future of the city. As founder and president of Project for Public Spaces, he is known throughout the world as a dynamic speaker and prolific ideas man.Traveling over 150,000 miles each year, Fred offers technical assistance to communities and has given talks across the U.S. as well as internationally. Each year, he and the PPS staff train 10,000 people in Placemaking techniques.
Audiences Fred has addressed include the Smart Growth Network, Federal Highway Administration, U.S. General Services Administration, American Society of Landscape Architects, American Public Transit Association, U.S Forest Service, the World Bank, New Jersey DOT, New York DOT, Ford Foundation, Caltrans, Connecticut Main Street Center, and the Princes Foundation. He has trained over 1,000 transportation professionals from statewide DOTs, in addition to many thousands of community and neighborhood groups across the country.
Fred studied with Margaret Mead and worked with William H. Whyte on the Street Life Project, assisting in observations and film analysis of corporate plazas, urban streets, parks and other open spaces in New York City. The research resulted in the now classic ‘The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces’, published in 1980, which laid out conclusions based on decades of meticulous observation and documentation of human behavior in the urban environment.
In 1968, Fred founded the Academy for Black and Latin Education (ABLE), a street academy for high school dropouts. He was Program Director for the Mayor’s Council on the Environment in New York City under Mayor John Lindsay. In 1970, and again in 1990, Fred was the coordinator and chairman of New York City’s Earth Day.
He has taken over half a million photographs of public spaces and their users, which have appeared in exhibits, publications and articles.
Education
Columbia University, Bachelor of Arts in Economics
Columbia University, Graduate Program in Urban Geography
Selected Professional Presentations and Lectures
World Design Conference 2010, Panelist, Seoul, Korea, December 2010
Aspirations and Inspirations: Imagining the Buffalo Waterfront, Buffalo, NY, November 2010
Interdisciplinary Design Institute: Design Research Conference, Spokane, WA, October 2010
North Louisiana Travel Conference, Speaker, Shreveport-Bossier, LA, August 2010
Pedestrian Symposium, Speaker, LA County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, May 2010
Ochsner Hare & Hare 100th anniversary conference, Keynote address, Kansas City, KS, May 2010
Greater East End Forum Lunch,Keynote address, Houston, TX, January 2010
48th ICCA Congress & Exhibition, Keynote address, International Congress and Convention Association, Florence, Italy, November 2009
19th Annual Toronto Planning Gala Dinner, Keynote address, Toronto Planning Alumni, Toronto, Canada, November 2009
Michigan Municipal League Annual Convention, Keynote address, Michigan Municipal League, Kalamazoo, MI, September 2009
“Transforming the Metropolis” Delange Conference, Rice University, Houston, TX, March 2009
Destination Italy: Scenarios, Trends and Strategies to Enhance Italian Tourism, Keynote address, Fondazione Rosselli, Confturismo, Turin, Italy, January 2009
“Future Cities” Keynote address, City of Bergen, Bergen, Norway, November 2008
“National Congress on Public Space” CROW, the Netherlands, November 2008
Gold Coast City Council, Gold Coast, Australia, September 2008
Subtropical Cities Conference, Brisbane, Australia, September 2008
Place Leaders Association Workshop, Melbourne, Australia, September 2008
“Power of Ten” Committee for Perth, Perth, Australia, August 2008
“Placemaking and Tourism” Destination Marketing Association Internations (DMAI) Annual Conference, Las Vegas, NV, July 2008
“World Cities Summit” National Parks Board, Singapore, June 2008
Uncommon Ground lecture series, NY Parks and Recreation Department, New York, NY, June 2008
“The Quality of Density” Third Congress for Israeli Urbanism, Movement for Israeli Urbanism, Tel-Aviv, Israel, May 2008
“What If We Built Cities Around Place” Keynote address at Mary Donaldson lecture, Saskatchewan Library Association, Regina, SK, Canada, May 2008
The Benwwood Foundation, lecture series, Chattanooga, TN, April 2008
BC Library Association, Richmond, BC, Canada April 2008
“To Be or Not to Be a Great Waterfront” Windy River Institute, Bullhead City, AZ, February 2008
“Sarasota International Design Summit 2007” Ringling College of Art and Design, Sarasota, FL, November 2007
“The Trail Ahead” Waterfront Conference and Trail Ride, Waterfront Regeneration Trust, Toronto, ON, September 2007
“Aspen Ideas Festival” Aspen, CO, July 2007
Mayor’s Roundtable, Oklahoma City, OK, May 2007
“Annual Conference” North Carolina American Society of Landscape Architects, Keynote address, Charlotte, NC, May 2007
Bergen Chamber of Commerce; Nordic Urban Design Conference (NUDA), Keynote address, Bergen, Norway, April 2007
“Catch the Neighborhood Spirit” Regional Neighborhood Network Conference, Keynote address, Bowling Green, KY, October 2006
“Public Spaces, Public Life” Copenhagen, Denmark, September 2006
“The Evolving Planner” 2006 Northern New England Chapter of the American Planning Association Annual Conference, Keynote address, Meredith, NH, September 2006
“Creating Valuable Cities,” keynote presentation, and closing panel session, Hong Kong, China, May 2006
“The Living City” Conference, Amersfoort, The Netherlands, May 2006